Farewell To "Kristol Mess Monday"

(By the way, Greg Mitchell of E&P gives Irving’s boy a going-away present of sorts here; would that Kristol and his attacks on common sense would “go away” for real, of course, but we’ll take what we can get.)

Not with a bang or even a whimper, a sad chapter in the annals of the fourth estate comes to a close with this, including the following (and I also posted here)…

Conservatives have been right more often than not — and more often than liberals — about most of the important issues of the day: about Communism and jihadism, crime and welfare, education and the family. Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.

I’m not quite sure how any American – to say nothing of any conservative – can be “proud” of the intervention by the Reagan Administration in the ‘80s in Afghanistan that ultimately led to the rise of Osama bin Laden, as noted in this Democracy Now! interview with Steve Coll, author of a notable book on the subject; if you’re going to spend a fortune arming these people against the Soviets, why not spend a relative pittance after the fact in helping them build schools and hospitals to help put their lives back together after we’ve helped them to blow their enemies and themselves to bits (the whole “winning hearts and minds” thing)?

And though this doesn’t fit into Kristol’s grab bag of conservative “success stories” under the guise of crime, welfare, education or the family (maybe more of the last category, unintentionally?), this excerpt from a 1995 Mother Jones analysis of Baby Newton Leroy’s “Contract On America” is nonetheless applicable (with Kristol and Gingrich being two peas in a foul pod)…

In the name of fiscal responsibility, Republicans will press for deep cuts in programs many Americans have come to rely upon for their health and overall well-being. Everything from poultry inspections and federal park maintenance to health research and public broadcasting is likely to suffer.

...

Obviously, cutting federal benefits to the poor, blind, and disabled is not what most Americans had in mind when they turned over control of Congress to the GOP. But that is what the Republicans have in store. All of the above programs would have to be radically reduced just to give the Republicans a chance of living up to their promises to cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget.

Oh, and as long as we’re revisiting bad Repug history, remember this gem in the “contract” from Former Senator Wide Stance?...

(Repug Idaho Sen. Larry) Craig will push a point embedded deep within the contract that will require the federal government to compensate private landholders and businesses when the cost of complying with federal regulations exceeds 10 percent of the property value. Craig and other private property proponents contend that the current system--which requires landholders and corporations to pay the costs of environmental cleanup and endangered species preservation--violates the Fifth Amendment, which states "nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation." Recently, judges have sided with landholders and businesses when the cost of complying with regulations equals or exceeds 100 percent of the land value.

The 10 percent threshold proposed by the Republicans would add billions of dollars to the government's cost of protecting endangered species and removing dangerous substances from the air, water, and workplace--costs that Republicans are not interested in financing. Environmentalists have said, for example, the government would never have been able to ban DDT in 1972 under the Republican proposal, because of the costs associated with compensating the farmers who used the toxic insecticide.

Oh, and here’s another obscured item from the “Contract”…

Civil Rights Laws: The Contract erodes the enforcement of civil rights, worker's rights, (and) employment discrimination…under the guise of a "cost/benefit" analysis on all new and existing regulations. Agencies must justify the costs of those regulations to the states and to businesses and then must lower the costs each year to be less than the proceeding year. The Republicans do not weigh in the balance the benefits civil rights and non-discrimination laws have for individuals and the society at large; these laws are basic constitutional rights guaranteed to everyone.

However, perhaps realizing that his time taking up space on the Times Op-Ed page is indeed running out and he’s seeking to be diplomatic somehow, Kristol leaves us with this…

That exhortation (from Tom Paine, including the phrase "These are the times that try men’s souls"; he’s opining about Obama’s inauguration speech) was appropriate for World War II. Today, the dangers are less stark, and the conflicts less hard. Still, there will be trying times during Obama’s presidency, and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be, as it was under F.D.R., a fighting faith, unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty?

(I’d like to see Kristol Mess actually file for unemployment or visit a homeless shelter or a VA health care center so he can tell those in need of services that “the dangers are less stark, and the conflicts less hard” than World War II, by the way.)

And the Times’ conservative quota hire concludes his column today (after the paragraph I just highlighted) with “That would be a service to our country,” followed by the Times Op-Ed note that “This is William Kristol’s last column.”

Sounds like somebody ought to flip those two sentences around, if you ask me.

Update 1/27/09: The Times reports today that Kristol is going to the WaPo; the ideological inbreeding of our corporate media cousins continues.